How Big Data And The Internet Of Things Improve Public Transport In London

Transport for London (TfL) oversees a network of buses, trains, taxis, roads, cycle paths, footpaths and even ferries which are used by millions every day. Running these vast networks, so integral to so many people’s lives in one of the world’s busiest cities, gives TfL access to huge amounts of data. This is collected through ticketing systems as well as sensors attached to vehicles and traffic signals, surveys and focus groups, and of course social media.

Lauren Sager-Weinstein, head of analytics at TfL spoke to me about the two key priorities for collecting and analyzing this data: planning services, and providing information to customers. “London is growing at a phenomenal rate," she says. "The population is currently 8.6 million and is expected to grow to 10m very quickly. We have to understand how they behave and how to manage their transport needs.”

“Passengers want good services and value for money from us, and they want to see us being innovative and progressive in order to meet those needs.”

Oyster prepaid travel cards were first issued in 2003 and have since been expanded across the network. Passengers effectively “charge” them by converting real money from their bank accounts into “Transport for London money” which are swiped to gain access to buses and trains. This enables a huge amount of data to be collected about precise journeys that are being taken.

A London Transport Oyster card is held in front of an Underground map. (Photo Illustration by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Journey mapping

This data is anonymized and used to produce maps showing when and where people are traveling, giving both a far more accurate overall picture, as well as allowing more granular analysis at the level of individual journeys, than was possible before. As a large proportion of London journeys involve more than one method of transport, this level of analysis was not possible in the days when tickets were purchased from different services, in cash, for each individual leg of the journey.

That isn’t to say that integrating state of the art data collection strategies with legacy systems has been easy in a city where the public transport has operated since 1829. For example on London Underground (Tube) journeys passengers are used to “checking out and checking in” – tickets are validated (by automatic barriers) at the start and end of a journey. However on buses, passengers simply check in. Traditionally tickets were purchased from the bus driver or inspector for a set fee per journey. There is no mechanism for recording where a passenger leaves the bus and ends their journey – and implementing one would have been impossible without creating an inconvenience to the customer.